NORRISTOWN — The Greater Norristown Area Ministerium (GNAM) will launch an anti-violence campaign called “Celebration of Peace” on Martin Luther King Sunday starting at 4 p.m. at Siloam Baptist Church.

The event will feature guest speaker Rev. Jeffrey Brown, who previously traveled to Norristown in October through a grant from Norristown Weed and Seed and is the co-founder of the successful Boston TenPoint Coalition, which the GNAM has used as the basis to build their anti-violence campaign around.

“We started working with Rev. Jeffrey Brown out of TenPoint Coalition. He did training with us,” explained Bishop Richard McCray, who presides over the Norristown Church of God and currently serves as the president of GNAM. “For about 18 months, we’ve been doing this process with the community.”

In addition to Brown speaking, excerpts from a documentary made by Sixx King, which shows the effects of murder and “how it just traumatizes families,” will also be screened at the service.

During the organization process in preparation of the campaign launch, GNAM has worked with various churches, community organizations, members of the Norristown Police Department, representatives from the Norristown Area School District, and local government officials.

According to McCray, with the various groups working together, the anti-violence will have a far greater chance at success because of all the different outlets, especially those based around different belief systems.

“We’re going to begin to launch the bigger campaign talking about what we’re going to try to do collectively,” said McCray. “We know this is a unique situation partnering with non-religious entities and social services. The Ministerium, we are Christ-centered, but we understand that this endeavor is reaching all backgrounds.”

By launching the campaign on Martin Luther King Sunday, the organization will be able to take messages preached by King and apply it to current problems facing the greater Norristown community with an emphasis on young people.

“We were dialoguing amongst the pastors and we were saying that we don’t want the service to just be about Martin Luther King. We wanted to talk about (his message), because if we’re just pointing people to Martin Luther King, we could lose some of the continuity,” said McCray. “We decided to make it about what he represented, thus the celebration of peace.”

Sunday’s event is the first of many events planned by the group over the next few months to launch the anti-violence campaign. Some events will take place at churches, such as one planned for Feb. 2 at Macedonia Baptist Church, while others are planned at community locations such as parks or Partners for Families on Main Street in Norristown.

“We want to challenge as many young people as possible to be at that service so that they can be a part of the beginning of this dialogue,” McCray said.

McCray also explained that the campaign, which is based on the TenPoint Coalition model from Boston but has been modified to better suit the needs of Norristown, is scheduled to last for two years in its current form before the work is assessed and any modifications that are needed can be made.

The Siloam Baptist Church is located at 1329 Willow St. in Norristown. For more information on Sunday’s service, call 484-213-9375.

More information on the Greater Norristown Area Ministerium can be found at www.greaternam.org.